Squash Grexes 2024

So far, my squashes are all doing great. My area did the opposite thing from @UnicornEmily 's - our last frost was 4 weeks before the usual.

I trasplanted my first batch of maxima squashes 2 weeks before the estimated last frost date, now a week after LF date they’re huge and flowering prolifically already.

Im quite concerned I may get whalloped by vine borers, though. While squashes have been healthy so far, my cucumbers and melons have been decimated by pests as have various other plants from different families. I think the super early spring threw all the timing and populations of pests/predators out of whack.

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Good, I’m glad the frost uncertainty swang the opposite way, in your favor! :wink:

Oh, interesting point. I’d be interested in hearing if the one-month-early summer does affect the insect populations in your area.

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I had the same problem as Emily with snow after a particularly warm spell. I had thrown some older squash seeds in an area that I wanted to cover though I’m not counting on getting a harvest. Plenty of germination but then the snow hit. Most of the seedlings died. But, interestingly, there was a black medic plant that covered some of the seedlings and it was enough to protect them. A couple of the exposed squash seedlings are also still standing, but their color seems a bit off. It will be surprising if they make it. This area is particularly hot and dry in summer but is covered with wood chip mulch. There’s moisture for now, but we’ll see if there’s enough for a squash to make it all the way through to the fall.

I just planted the GTS ficifolia seeds and also some Lagenaria. I chose a shadier spot since neither liked the sunny one I chose for them last year.

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Most of my C. Moschata are still alive and even flowing. Only a very select few of my direct seeded Moschata mix succumbed to the pressures so far. As I have a mix of GTS, David the Good, Large and Small Seminole, etc. I have a few late germinators popping up as the others are already starting to flower. A truly diverse mix in five separate planting mounds.

Outside of these, influenced by @DebbieA I also have a planting of Cucurbita argyrosperma I am working on for seed expansion.

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Squashes doing well, some are fruiting and some are really growing like crazy. I direct seeded in April of this year.




Im growing last years seed from 2023 and I think I added everything I had on hand to each mix, old seed and new. I also planted the Maximum Diversity mix of beans as a companion plant for the squash.

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Romanesco pollinated by Homs Kousa. Will be submitted to next year’s mix.

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Ooh, congratulations on your first fruit!

(Unless you have already gotten others. In which case, that’s even better!)

That’s great, Beth! Was it hand-pollinated?

Mine are still seedlings. I’ve been picking up hungry snails the last couple of days to keep them from eating the plants. But I’ll probably have to sow a few more seeds to make up for what’s already been eaten. I’m glad I have extra seeds!

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We ate our first romanesco from our home garden for dinner last night, and we’ll pick the first kousa tomorrow. The first romanesco from the school garden went home with a student last Friday.

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That’s very exciting! I love it when the harvests start coming in. :blush:

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Just found the right spot for this post! I’ve been picking so many interesting squash from the GTS Pepo mix. Here are a couple that have really got me confused! Maybe someone can help me identify these.

  1. This warty, tough skinned, scalloped/lemon squash is the most confusing of all.

  2. Looks like a cross between a romanesco/grey zucchini/ yellow squash

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Beautiful squash! Thanks for sharing them. Did you eat them? Just wondering if the skin of the lemon squash was edible.

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My GTS moschata squash seed along with a couple other packets including a new packet from Native Seed Search and some saved mostly moschata tetsukabuto descended seed I planted in one of my usual squash planting areas have had zero germination. I suspect predation by rodents as that has been a partial problem in the garden before- this time no survivors. Another garden has a very nice patch of moschata all from saved seed it is about half from a nice orange individual of Joseph’s moschata and about half from orange but qualitatively different orange individuals of that squash that often has the cool green flesh- hopefully the green will reappear and hasn’t segregated out. I am almost without Maxima this year, I ended up only planting one new packet of Mountaineer an old Montana heirloom from Triple Divide Seed and originally from Fisher’s in Belgrade MT. Though I have tons of saved seed of maxima squashes- just didn’t get more planted. Then I have an ongoing project with pepo squash where I am crossing mostly zucchinis with Mandan pepo squash. I added a packet of an intriguing pepo from Baker creek though. I also have four isolated plants of spaghetti squash in a different garden from the main pepo grex.

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My first post here, and first year trying landrace gardening. My moschata and ficifolia GTS mix plants have been doing great here in Boise, Idaho - till this week. If I can figure how to post photos, I’ll post some. Anyway, they’ve been growing fast and sprawling everywhere they could, but this week the squash bugs struck. I’ve been gardening here in this smallish suburban garden for 25 years and never had much trouble with squash bugs. I usually plant a zucchini or crooked-neck squash or two, but focus more on cukes and tomatoes. This year I planted 7 pots of GTS moschata and 3 pots of ficifolia, each with 2-3 plants. Germination was pretty good, and they were growing great, putting on lots of mostly male blossoms. The couple or three female fruits were looking like they hadn’t gotten pollinated and were going to drop. Then I noticed them starting to wilt in the mid-day heat the last week or so, then discovered they were covered with squash bugs. So I decided to pull several of the worst infested plants and put them in my hot composter. Am watching the others. It has been very hot here, over 95 every day for nearly 3 weeks, and over 100 for 8 of those days, with the high being 108 a week ago. I have some others planted in the shade of a fence, and they’re looking better, though I lost one plant there to squash bugs. If the plant has a lot of bugs on it and they’re starting to kill leaves, I’ve been pulling and composting the whole plant. Crossing my fingers that some will be resistant and hoping the bugs won’t spread to the rest of my garden. Those things are particularly vile! :nauseated_face:
Here’s what the plants looked like a week ago:


I pulled those because lots of the leaves looked like this:

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@AlinBoise
OMG, the squash bugs :bug: hoping you had some plants pull through. Im getting the garden ready to plant during monsoon season here in AZ. Its the second time to plant here for the year for warmer weather vegetables. However, the summer hear is still sweltering at 110 degrees most days and high 80’s overnight. No rainfall as of yet…

An update from Boise, Idaho. It has been a really HOT summer. Literally half the days in July were over 100, and August is so far just a bit cooler, in the mid-to-high 90’s. I’ve pulled all my winter squash (Moschata Mix) except one due to a terrible squash bug infestation. The one plant is still hanging in there, but not looking very healthy. Crossing my fingers that it’ll survive long enough to fruit. I’ve also got one or two Figleaf Gourd (cucurbita ficifolia) plants that survived the squash bug onslaught, and they’re sprawling all along a fence in partial shade and flowering, so hopefully I’ll get something from those. :crossed_fingers:

The Muskmelon Delicious Mix has done better. I lost a couple plants to the squash bugs, but I’ve got 3 or 4 plants that seem unfazed, and they’re producing melons. Picked the first one today. I think I waited too long, as it started to split. I’m not very experienced with muskmelons, so don’t know what to look for in terms of when to harvest. It smells terrific. Going to taste it soon. Definitely will save seed from this.


My Purely Promiscuous Tomatoes and Colorful Mix Potatoes are also doing well. Will post some pics in those respective threads.

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The pictures below are from Landrace Moschata seeds by the Buffalo Seed company, originally from Joseph. Have you ever had butternuts that had a zucchini colored dark green skin when unripe? All the butternuts I’ve grown had pale skin when unripe.
I like that trait and wonder how it will affect the mature fruit!


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Could someone remind me of what type or types of marker that is appropriate for writing directly on squash skin, for labeling? Am I thinking of grease pencils?

I was sure this had been discussed before but I’m having trouble finding a discussion like that.

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You can scratch into the skin with something sharp which will scar over.

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An update on my Moschata Mix and Figleaf Gourd (cucurbita ficifolia) plants here in Boise, Idaho (Zone 7a). Yesterday I had to pull the last remaining Moschata and Figleaf Gourd plants due to squash bugs:

As you can see, I did get one Moschata squash, so I’ll save those seeds and try them again next year. The Figleaf Gourd plants produced a lot of male blossoms, but I never saw any female blossoms, and got no fruit at all. At one time they thoroughly covered about half my garden, but all I got was one squash (and more squash bugs than I hope to ever see again)! Lots of leaves looked like this underneath:

As I mentioned in my previous post, this summer was very hot, with half of July being over 100 F, so perhaps the weather may have been a factor in the squash bug infestation. It’s the second year in a row with record-setting hot weather in July. I hope this is not becoming the “new normal”. A friend in the neighborhood also commented he had far more squash bugs than he’d seen before. Anyway, I’ll try the seeds from my one Moschata that survived next year, and hope it will adapt.

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